


For a Chipwich

by Wisteria_Leigh



Series: Prompted Works [7]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Panic Attacks, Sheetz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 09:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16807996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wisteria_Leigh/pseuds/Wisteria_Leigh
Summary: He’d never known his dad to go to Sheetz for gas. What a stupid thing to remember about him. And irrelevant. Because no matter what he remembered, he was here. Right now. Feeding crumbled bills into the machine. Pulling the gas pump from its dock. Finagling it into the finicky gas tank. Arms crossed and scowling at the numbers rocketing up and up and up on the screen.Didn’t matter where Adam hid, where he ran, Robert Parrish could always find him.





	For a Chipwich

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by an anon on Tumblr from [ this list ](http://purrincesscatitude.tumblr.com/post/180566839025/drabble-challenge): "43 w/ pynch! (“I feel like I can’t breathe.”)"

It wasn’t the first panic attack Adam ever had, but it was definitely the worst.

He was sitting in the BMW at the Sheetz on the fringe of Henrietta. Ronan really wanted boneless buffalo wings, but didn’t want them from a credible food establishment because “it’s not worth it unless you completely fuck up your insides.” Adam was hungry--was, to be fair, always hungry--and Ronan said that if he drove him there, he’d buy him a chipwich. It was a decent bargain. He agreed.

Adam returned to Henrietta for some school breaks; not all, because gas prices and internships and midterms that fell after fall break and RA duties kept him bound to New Jersey for the summers and the shorter breaks. But it was winter break, and he had three weeks, and enough money to pay for gas, and Boyd had agreed to give him a few shifts, and it had been too long since he and Ronan had been able to sleep besides each other long enough to get used to it again, and apparently Opal had reached a record-breaking 22-day-long temper tantrum because Adam hadn’t been back since the end of summer.

There were _homes--_ The Barns, Cabeswater, even Fox Way to an extent--and then there was his hometown. The place that had raised him. Streets he used to bike down, pay phones he’d used, grocery stores where his mom’s debit card had been declined, bars he knew were his father’s favorites. Home was comfortable and safe. His hometown, on the other hand, set his teeth on edge.

Ronan knew going into town made Adam uncomfortable (although apparently not uncomfortable enough to stop working at Boyd’s, which was “fucking stupid” in Ronan’s opinion). He avoided it as best he could: went to the grocery store in the next town over when Adam was home, took the back roads or the highway and never the route through downtown, and never forced Adam to go with him when he had to go into Henrietta proper. 

He had offered Adam a deal for the chipwich, yes, but Adam knew Ronan would get it for him no matter his answer. He also knew that an over-processed and overpriced ice cream sandwich wasn’t worth the sore jaw and racing heart Henrietta caused. But he’d been pouring over notes for a year-long project for the past three days, and his mind was desperate for a change of scenery. And when you need Sheetz, you need Sheetz. 

Going inside at the risk of seeing someone he knew, or that knew of him, wasn't worth even the multi-million winning lottery ticket the convenience store claimed to sell. So he sat in the parking lot, taking full advantage of the rare opportunity to control the stereo and enjoying the beamer's heated seats, waiting while Ronan got food.

He had been alone in the car for two and a quarter songs when a blue 1988 Toyota pick-up pulled into the gas station.

_No._

His hands tightened around the wheel.

The pick-up parked at a pump, sputtered out one last plume of exhaust.

_No._

His heart skipped and started, over and over, a cracked CD sputtering and halting and frozen.

The door had to be forced open. Past 45 degrees it swung easily. Adam couldn’t hear the sound. Didn’t need to hear it to know the exact tone and rhythm of the squeak. 

_Not here._

He held his breath. Didn’t dare breathe too loudly. He would hear him. He always heard him.

Robert Parrish got out of the driver’s seat. Round, old knit cap pulled over his balding head, stained old coat and old ripped jeans. Adam recognized every inch of him. He fumbled with something under the driver's seat, coughed a cloud white breath into the winter air. 

_Not here. Not here. Not here._

He’d never known his dad to go to Sheetz for gas. What a _stupid_ thing to remember about him. And irrelevant. Because no matter what he remembered, he was here. Right now. Feeding crumbled bills into the machine. Pulling the gas pump from its dock. Finagling it into the finicky gas tank. Arms crossed and scowling at the numbers rocketing up and up and up on the screen.

He hadn’t seen him. Hadn't noticed the BMW. He wasn’t looking around the parking lot. 

But still, he'd found Adam. He always found him. Didn’t matter where Adam hid, where he ran, Robert Parrish could always find him. Under the sink? Beneath the front steps? Behind the trailer? In the closet? In an attic apartment above the local catholic parish halfway across town? In the depths of a nightmare or in a flickering flame when he scried? He always knew. Followed the scent of Adam's fear. Tracked the marks of disappointment and weakness he always left behind. 

Adam couldn’t breathe.

Robert jiggled the pump. Put it back in the holder with his large, chapped hands. Hands that left bruises and drew blood and shook Adam harder and harder and _harder_ until Adam _looked at him, boy! Look me in the eyes like a real man! Don’t you dare disrespect me like that again!_

A door opened. The car shook.

Noise. Someone talking.

He needed to go. Right now. Needed to go. Needed--

“Parrish?”

Adam turned the ignition. Switched gears. Barely checked when he reversed. Whipped out of the parking lot faster than he should have.

_Get away get away run run run run--_

“Parrish, the hell is wrong with you?”

He turned onto 81.

“Where the fuck are we going? This is the wrong way.”

_don’t stop don’t wait he’s coming he’s coming he’s coming--_

Everything was loud and everything was silent. His ear burned. His jaw hurt. Copper coated his tongue. Bruises ached along his ribs. Tears blurred his vision.

_Don’t you dare cry. Boys don’t cry. You’re not a real boy, huh? That what’s wrong with you? You some sort of--_

“Adam? What’s wrong, dude?”

He couldn’t breathe--

“Adam.”

Couldn’t breathe--

“ _Adam._ ”

Couldn’t.

Breathe.

A hand grabbed the wheel, steered them sharply onto the shoulder of the highway. A car horn blared.

“Hit the clutch and brake.”

Adam did. A hand came over top his on the gearshift, downshifted into 1st. 

The BMW shuddered to a halt in a cloud of dust and gravel.

Three trucks thundered past. The car swayed in reply.

“What the fuck, man?” Ronan said.

Adam couldn’t breathe. Knuckles white, sweat slick on the leather steering wheel. Couldn’t breathe. Heart going too fast, not pumping enough, maybe pumping too much. Couldn’t breathe. A sob clawing up his throat. Couldn’t breathe.

Run. He needed to run. Needed to get away.

In one swift motion he unbuckled and threw open the door. Stumbled out of the car, around the back, and over the metal barrier. Run. Run. Run.

“ _Shit._ Adam!”

Everything was white noise. Too bright. Too loud. Car exhaust and roaring engines and air thick in preparation for snow. His heart was beating too fast, his lungs too tight. Everything was too much.

He sank to his knees a few feet into the field beyond the barrier, falling among the husks of overgrown weeds. Curled inward, hearing too much, seeing too much--

Fists and the sickening crack of leather straps and the sting of cold metal and the corner of the wooden steps slamming into his skull and yelling over and over _worthless, weak, a waste, a fucking waste of your momma’s time and my hard-earned money you dare disrespect me like that again and I’ll make sure you learn your goddamn place in this fucking house --_

Nails dug into his scalp, squeezing his ears closed and his eyes closed and trying to breathe breathe breathe--

“Hey.”

Footsteps crunched through the gravel, stopping a few feet in front of him, smelling of petrichor and hickory and fake black leather and some deodorant called “Wolfthorn” and buffalo sauce.

Ronan. Always able to cut through the white noise with such vibrant clarity.

“Adam,” he said, careful and soft and too far away. Adam heard him move closer, felt him crouch down in front of him.

Something about Ronan, something about his smell or his steady heartbeat or his predictability or whatever energy Adam's heightened perception could detect that lay beyond human comprehension--because it had always been him, it had _always_ been Ronan who could save Adam, time and time again--loosened the vice grip around his chest.

“I feel like I can’t breathe,” Adam whispered. “I can’t. I can’t--”

“Okay. It’s okay. Can I--?”

Adam nodded. Ronan’s fingers slid underneath Adam’s, warm and gentle, coaxing Adam’s hands into his, waiting patiently for the white-knuckled grip to ease enough for him to do the rest.

Once his hands were wrapped in Ronan’s, Ronan reached up one last time. Held his hand next to Adam’s cheek, but didn’t touch it yet. He waited. Waited until the feel of another body nearby didn’t make the muscles in Adam’s cheek twitch, waited until he knew Adam knew who he was.

Only then did he rest his palm against Adam’s face, dragging his fingers gently through Adam’s hair, wiping his thumb across his cheekbones.

Two anchor points. It was enough.

Adam inhaled a deep, shuddering gasp. Heaving breaths. Trying to fill his body with all the oxygen it has missed. Lungs contracting painfully and expanding too quickly over and over and over again.

He let the sob he’d held back rip free.

He had _seen him._ Had only been a few feet away.

It was supposed to be better by now, he thought. It had been four years. 1460 days. 35040 hours and some change since his father had last laid a hand on him. Since he’d faced him in the courtroom. Since he was declared free. Since he stood on the steps of 18 Antietam Road, hand on the same railing that ruptured his eardrum, in his button-up and tie with a high school diploma in one hand and a full ride to an Ivy in the other, offering forgiveness and redemption for parents that would’ve preferred he’d never been born.

He should be over this. He should be done.

Cars and trucks sped past. One person stopped to help. Ronan waved them away.

What about that “time heals all wounds” bullshit? Where the fuck was that logic right now?

Ronan didn’t say a word. He stroked Adam’s cheek in a gentle rhythm, squeezed his hands in time with exaggerated exhales.

It worked, just like it always did.

“What happened?” Ronan asked once Adam didn’t have anything left to cry out, once his breaths came in soft and even waves. 

“My dad,” Adam croaked, shifting to sit on the cold ground. He held his head in his hands. “He was there. At Sheetz.”

“That fucking piece of sh--”

“He didn’t see me. I don’t think. But…”

“Doesn’t matter if he saw you or not. You saw him. That’s enough of a fucking problem.”

Adam nodded, then dragged his hands down his face with a sigh. He scrubbed away what was left of the tears. He didn’t know how long they’d been sitting there. Grey clouds blanketed the sky, without even the smallest rip for the sun to peek through and count the hours.

He started to feel again, settling back into his body, becoming hyper-aware of the sharp winter winds blustering between the mountains that surrounded them. Started to feel numbness tingling through his fingers and toes from shoes not made for cold weather and fingers exposed to the frigid air. Started to feel a bit nauseated from the acrid sweetness of exhaust. Started to sag from the exhaustion burrowing deep into his bones.

Another deep breath in, slow and steady breath out. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Don’t fucking apologize,” Ronan said. “Don’t ever do that about...any of that.”

“Okay.”

Ronan took his hand, kissed each of his knuckles. A snowflake landed on their thumbs.

“Good news: it’s so damn cold your ice cream probably didn’t melt,” Ronan said, and it made Adam smile.

“Good.”

“I would’ve gotten you another, you know. Hell, I’ll go get you a whole freezer full of fucking chipwiches if you need it.”

“I’m okay, I think.”

“You sure? I kinda want to see what a 7-11 cashier would do if I bought ‘em all.”

“Please don’t.”

“Fine. Only because you asked nicely.”

Ronan stood, and kept their fingers interlaced to help Adam up.

“You want to drive?” Ronan asked, digging the keys out of his pocket.

Adam shrugged, but caught the keys when Ronan tossed them.

He put the keys in the ignition, but didn’t turn it. He watched the traffic rip past, held on tight to the steering wheel.

Ronan’s warm and calloused hand peeled his fingers from the wheel. In its place he put the half unwrapped chipwich. There was already a bite taken out of it.

Adam looked over at Ronan. He was too busy licking buffalo sauce from his cold wings to confirm or deny his guilt.

Adam smiled again, took a bite, and turned on the car.

They turned around at the next exit.

Ronan let Adam keep control of the stereo.

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you not familiar with the Appalachian region of the world/the East Coast in general, [ this is what Sheetz is ](https://www.sheetz.com/) and it's God's gift to this good green Earth. Their fried Mac & Cheese bites are as close to ambrosia as we mere mortals can get. [ It's an objective fact that Sheetz is the best ](https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/sheetz-best-gas-station-chain). I could write a 20 page ode just about my love affair with Sheetz. 
> 
> Really, this should just be the beginning of a series of TRC shorts that all take place at the same Sheetz gas station. Imagine Richard Campbell Gansey III gracing the queues of a Sheetz at 12am in boat shoes and a polo. Now imagine a revived Owain Glendower trying to navigate the MTO Touchscreens so he can get jalapeno poppers and Totz with Boom Boom sauce I MEAN COME ON this story is writing itself tbh.


End file.
